Tuesday, March 14, 2006

Old Times There are Not Forgotten

I'm going to make some people jealous with this post (namely, Halloweenlover). Apparently, in Alabama we have skipped right over spring and gone straight to summer. All winter I've dreamed of the mild spring days when the house would be lovely and comfortable and require no artificial temperature moderation of any kind. Well, we had about half a day of that.

Now, we are sleeping with a bedroom window open and a fan blowing. And Darwin's still hot.

I'm actually not feeling the heat much yet. Today it's a delightfully sunny 64 degrees outside (down from highs in the low '80s this weekend) after a big storm last night. Inside, the house feels wonderful to me. I can sit for hours in front of the computer obsessing about my listings on eBay without turning into a shivering, quivering lump of frozen flesh.

This weekend when I was re-arranging my closet, I had to change out of my requisite winter sweatpants and into shorts! That's right, I said SHORTS! I was actually SWEATING!

It's so wonderful to sit and watch TV without trying to keep every inch of skin tucked under a blanket, without wearing layers of clothes, without a heater forever drying out my face!

I don't think I've ever appreciated spring this much. Last year, we were less conservative (read: stingy) with the heat, so the onset of spring wasn't nearly such a relief.

Now the new game begins: How long can we last before we turn on the A/C? We made it till nearly the end of May last year. This year my goal is July! Do you think I can do it?

My motivation for not turning up the A/C isn't so much about money (we have electric A/C vs. gas heat) as ... hmmm, what is my motivation? Part of it is that I like having the windows open. The cats like it, too. (Darwin not so much. He's always paranoid about the cats bursting through the screens and escaping.)

But I think the main motivation is to use our house the way it was intended. These high-ceilinged, center hall houses in the South were designed to minimize heat. This is what our house does best, and I like to let it do it. When I'm looking out a window, I can't see the TV or the microwave or the faux-vintage stereo. It's easier to pretend I'm living like they did before A/C was invented.

Besides, there's something so pleasantly old-fashioned and Southern about hanging out in a house with the windows open, sweating a little, waiting for the fan to oscillate back your way and blow the humidity-curled hair off your neck. It reminds me of my childhood: family reunions in old two-room schoolhouses, 4th of July with homemade ice cream, swinging on my grandparents' porch, the dark little convenience stores where Daddy would stop and let me get a striped coconut candy bar.

Sounds like a country song, huh? But like any good country song, there must be a lament. Maybe all these things still happen somewhere, but most of them have disappeared from my life. For years now, the family reunion has been held in the air-conditioned church basement. Doesn't that say it all?

So I'll hold onto this little piece of humidity while I can. Just remind me of this when I start complaining about the heat come May ...

Wednesday, October 26, 2005

3,000 Square Feet of Insulation

Darwin went under the house today to evaluate the insulation situation. The last time we looked, it was (I think) around this time last year, and we noted the house was partially insulated under the floor with fiberglass batting. Since then, we've been planning to finish out the insulation.

Another winter is fast approaching, with the promise of even higher gas prices than last year. We're trying to resist turning on the heat, so the last two nights it has been pretty chilly in the house. When the cats curl up with us on the couch instead of blinking at us scornfully from across the room, we know it's cold.

It is time to insulate under the rest of the house. But Darwin found that it's a much bigger job than we anticipated. For some reason, we thought most of the house was insulated. Oops. Only ONE ROOM is insulated - our bedroom, which is notably cooler or warmer than the rest of the house at appropriate times. Makes sense.

So now Darwin is thinking this might be too big a job for him. He suggested we *gasp* PAY SOMEONE ELSE to do it. That would be a first for us.

To argue his point, he presented me with the long-awaited actual square footage of our house. It's somewhere around 3,300 square feet ... nowhere near either the previous owner's claim - 3,900 - or the appraiser's - 2,800. I want to check the appraisal again because if he underestimated by that much, we could possibly refinance. Only trouble is I can't FIND the appraisal. I put in a call to our loan person today and left a message. Maybe she still has a copy.

Tuesday, July 26, 2005

Moldy Moulding

Oh boy, we have a mold problem. I noticed it yesterday afternoon - an unbearably hot day in a week of unbearably hot days - when condensation on the transom window over our bedroom door caught my eye. I went over for a closer look and noticed black spots of mold all over the white-painted wood around and above the window. My eyes traveled higher - oh no, the mold continued up the wall, onto the ceiling. I whirled and saw that it continued - to a lesser degree - on the wood panel thingy over the French doors and even on the beadboard underside of the upper stairs.

I ran up to the attic - ok, trudged once I met a near-solid wall of hot air - to check for leaks but saw nothing. I broke out in a sweat within seconds of entering the attic, so I skedaddled out of there quickly.

Here's the room in question, though this picture was taken last summer when there appeared to be no mold issues:

Darwin was on his way home when I noticed the mold, and I pointed it out to him when he got there. He noticed that the heat from the attic stairs or just from heat rising, whatever, began exactly where the mold began around the top third of the room. I could reach my arm over my head and feel the strata of heat above. It doesn't help that there's no A/C vent in this particular segment of the hall (the middle section), so it's slightly hotter than the other places in the house.

The trouble is, short of cleaning off the mold over and over, I'm not sure what to do to stop this from happening. The hardware is missing to work the transom window, so I wonder if it would help the condensation if we bought some new hardware from Van Dyke's and kept the transom open (we keep the doors to the bedroom closed to prevent cat hair from accumulating all over our bed). Maybe that would help the cool air circulate better?

I've also considered painting the whole area with that mold- and moisture-resistant paint they sell for bathrooms. And there's an attic fan we tried out last year, but the motor started smoking. Would an attic fan - with a new motor - help?

Tuesday, May 24, 2005

Sweat is Now Banished

Sadly, the time of open windows is over. I gave in and turned on the central air.

Some of you Northern folks will probably think it's ridiculously early to turn on the A/C, but here we were one of the later hold-outs. This had been a lovely cool spring, but then one day in early May the heat hit and it hit hard.

For some time, Darwin had been hinting that he wouldn't mind a little forced-air refreshment, but I was stubbornly - and stingily - holding out. "Let's just see how long we can go without having to turn it on!" I would say, in the sort of making-something-sucky-into-a-game tone parents use with their toddlers. Even as I worked with the dear heat gun, I shunned the A/C, pretending instead that I was Ashley Judd in A Time to Kill when she was always glistening attractively with Mississippi sweat-pearls.

Then when our neighborhood friends came over to see the house and view our Antique Alley purchases, we were all sitting in the kitchen sweating glistening ... and I gave in.

Darwin raced to close all the windows (which only seemed to be letting in more heat anyway), and we kicked on both A/C units. Ahhhhh, it felt wonderful.

The cats are the true losers in this deal. They loved hanging out in the open windows, soaking up the sights and smells of birds and grass and bugs. Now, they shove their heads under the blinds or the curtains, but it's just not the same. Poor boys. Maybe we can open the windows again in October.

Thursday, May 12, 2005

Cool Old Stuff for my Hot Old House

Update: Sorry about the broken and messed up links. They're fixed now. I apparently forgot to upload the new photos of the parlor set and fainting couch ... there's a photo of one of the parlor chairs. I'll post more later.

I'm back and bronzed. OK, I'm not really bronzed. I have never been bronzed in my life ... unless you count those brown patches on my knees and ankles whenever I tried self-tanners. I didn't even set foot on the hurricane-flattened beaches of Gulf Shores, though I did sit out on the balcony and enjoy the view.

Now I'm back and suffering from some sort of mild stomach illness that allows me to feel fine most of the time but then strikes after I eat or drink anything. So I'm home from work today.

But, industrious woman that I am, I couldn't stand to hole up in the house all day. So I went to the first day of Eutaw's Antique Alley Trade Days. We were planning to go on Saturday, but I figured it's always better to get there early and snatch up all the good stuff before someone else does.

My Veruca Salt tendencies came out in full force. But I got good bargains, I swear!

I would name my favorite purchase of the day, but I am pleased as punch with every last item, so I'll list them all:

Total: $1,490. Yes, that's a lot of money, but I got a lot of stuff for it. The best part was when we brought the parlor set home and realized it looks as if it belongs here.

In spite of my illness - and the unbearable heat - this has been a wonderful day. The only real fly in my ointment - almost literally - is the 15 unbearably itchy mosquito bites I got while put-put golfing at the beach. I wore bug repellant, so I guess I would be one giant mass of swollen red spots if I hadn't. Ah, the Mosquito Queen's work is never done.